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Chronic Absenteeism Toolkit

Chronic absenteeism arises from a variety of obstacles. While it is important to keep students learning and on track with their peers, Attendance Works reminds us that the challenge of improving attendance is to avoid making the incorrect assumption that chronically absent students or their parents simply do not care.

The following resources provide strategies to bring schools, families, and community partners together, so they can determine the causes of chronic absence, and implement approaches that address these barriers.

Whether you are a school teacher, administrator, or a parent or community member, you have a role to play in bridging the gap between students battling extraordinary life circumstances and staying on track with their education.

Attendance Works
Attendance Works is a national and state initiative that promotes better policy and practice around school attendance. They promote tracking chronic absence data for each student beginning in kindergarten or ideally earlier and partnering with families and community agencies to intervene when poor attendance is a problem for students or schools.
Teaching Attendance Took Kit

ASCD
ASCD adopts a Whole Child approach in an effort to transition from a focus on narrowly defined academic achievement to one that promotes the long-term development and success of all children. Through this approach, ASCD supports educators, families, community members, and policymakers as they move from a vision about educating the whole child to sustainable, collaborative actions.

OSDE Students with Disabilities and Chronic Absenteeism FAQs
Special circumstances may exist for students with significant medical conditions.

National Center for Education Statistics
The NCES works to improve the quality of education data gathered for use by policymakers and program decision makers. An approach to furthering their goal has been to pool the collective experiences of Forum members to produce "best practice" guides in areas of high interest to those who collect, maintain, and use data about elementary and secondary education.
Every School Day Counts: The Forum Guide to Collecting and Using Attendance Data

US Department of Education
Every Student, Every Day Tool Kit

Search Institute

The Search Institute focuses on deepening understanding and working with partners to improve the lives of young people in three critical areas: Developmental Assets, Developmental Relationships, and Developmental Communities.

Last Modified on Nov 11, 2024
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